Apple stops selling Mac Pro in EU ahead of March 1 deadline

The Mac Pro is making its exit from the European market a little ahead of schedule. As of Tuesday morning, Apple began showing the Mac Pro as unavailable via its EU online store, 10 days before the March 1 deadline it announced at the end of January.

Apple first announced its intention to stop shipping the Mac Pro in the EU beginning March 1 due to a new EU safety standard, IEC 60950-1. As we wrote in January, an amendment to the regulation adds new safety requirements for computers and electronics, and the Mac Pro simply doesn't meet them. "The new requirements necessitate fan guards and some increased protection on the ports on the electrical system," Apple told Macworld UK in January. "Because Mac Pro is not compliant with the regulations, we do want to meet that regulation and therefore [will] not offer Mac Pro beyond March 1."

But it's February 19, not March 1. As noted by MacRumors, when Apple first made the announcement about ending Mac Pro sales in the EU, it also told third-party resellers there would be a deadline of February 18 for preorders. What wasn't known at that time was that Apple apparently meant the February 18 deadline would apply to all EU customers buying from Apple.

The current iteration of the Mac Pro will no longer be available throughout the European Union, as well as Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, and Switzerland, and EU candidate countries. As such, if you live in the EU (or one of the other affected countries) and intended to buy a Mac Pro before March 1, you may have to get your fix through a reseller while supplies last.

Then again, Apple CEO Tim Cook dropped some pretty heavy hints last year that a new Mac Pro would arrive this year, so perhaps it's time to sit back and wait to see what's coming down the pipeline—assuming it meets IEC 60950-1.